JIMMY AKIN.ORG asks, "Ente bTaref `Arabi?"

While doing so, he offers a breath of sanity in the recently heated comboxes of St. Blog's. Read his thoughts here. Hat tip to Mark Shea. Money quote:

Now the reason I wasn't happy when I read this is that I knew it would be taken the wrong way by a great many Catholics. Had he asked me if he should refer to God in this way in this speech, I would have advised against it. I suspect that the confusion it would cause would outweigh whatever slight diplomatic edge it might give the talk.

But one should not freak out about this, as some in the blogosphere have been doing.

The fact is that Allah is simply the standard Arabic word for "God." It is used by Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians alike--including Arabic-speaking Catholics. If you read an Arabic New Testament, it's going to have Allah where "God" appears in the English version. When they say prayers in Arabic (e.g., the Rosary) and the prayer refers to God, they use the word Allah.

I have more experience on this point than many English-speakers do since I have a lot of Arabic-speaking Catholic friends (Chaldeans, Maronites, etc.). I hang out with their priests, go over to their houses, spend time at their churches, go out to lunch with them, work on projects with them, discuss the situations in their home countries, inject snatches of Arabic into talks I give at their parishes, etc., etc., etc.

And this is just not a big deal.

Say amen, brother! Preach it! There are many battles Catholics and other Fools need to fight--some of them with Episcopals. This is so not one of them! In fact, I'd say more Foolables of the right have spilled more cyber-ink over this non-issue than nearly any other combox warriors.

How about we put the kool-aid down and slowly back away? Because the heat-of-the-moment has done little to witness to Christian Charity. Not to mention Christians' charity. God-fearing muslims of good will have every reason to become suspicious of Catholics when they read commentary that bleeds out of the combox arenas. Let's give it a rest and get back to work! There's too much to do already!